The message and the story

I mentioned before I’d been doing some filming in front of camera. I was on the sea cliffs of Lewis and some footage of me throwing myself off Screaming Geo is now in a Land Rover ad which reached the TV screens of the UK last night. You can see it above.

I was aware I needed a bit of falling practice after the last proper trad fall I had ended in surgery. There is a short film about one of the other guys in the ad called Mike Goody (the blade runner) below, which is a really nice and honest film. Worth watching. It’s amazing how feeling a bit powerless can really creep in and affect you after an accident or injury. I must admit I’ve let that happen quite a lot at times over the past year and been in need of a bit of support (understatement) from friends to help me get through.

It’s not as black and white as just finding the will to be positive, as some sources of advice would suggest. You have to have something to be positive about. I.e. there has to be a plan, and knowing what that should be can be next to impossible when you are very injured. I reckon most folk can deal with adversity pretty well, and many can even take it in their stride. It’s the uncertainty that really hauls you over the coals. You aren’t sure if you are still going to be able to be the person you are and want to be any more.

Even the old Churchill saying about 'when you're going through hell, keep going' is a bit simplistic. Sometimes you just don't know where to go to leave your present predicament. I've definitely learned over the past year or two that good help and advice are critical. Without it you are vulnerable. Good friends and very very good doctors who share, or at the very least, truly understand your goals, are precious.

In the ad, everyone was saying 'I can'. It's true that 'I can' is the message it boils down to. But the wider story is 'with your help, I can'.

Hebrides with Natalie

Natalie Berry enjoying The Prozac Link, E4, Screaming Geo, Lewis.

Natalie Berry has been a very successful youth competition and sport climber for several years. Now in her early twenties, with podium places and 8b red points under her belt, she is motivated to move into adventure climbing and has just started trad climbing. We had a few days booked in to head north and get some routes in, taking the Hot Aches Productions crew with us. Although I’ve known Natalie for many years from our days living in Glasgow, we’ve never climbed outdoors together until last year. These days we are colleagues on the Scarpa and Mountain Equipment teams too!

The poor forecast told us to get the ferry to the Western Isles for the best possible chance of dry rock. With a wealth of mountain and sea cliffs of all different shapes and sizes, and plenty of new routes still to explore, Lewis and Harris are always still high on my list of places to hit when the warm weather arrives, despite the fact I’ve climbed there a lot over the years. To be honest, I like to go there for the general vibe of the place even more than the climbing. Stress tends to disappear here. After 5 days here I feel like I have more energy than I have for many months.

Sunshine at the Aird Uig sea cliffs, Lewis. Photo: Hot Aches Productions

On our first day, the mountain crags were looking a bit windy, wet and cold so we ended up at the Uig sea cliffs, where Nat dispatched her first E1 with ease. She was still looking a little uncertain how to approach trad pitches; arranging the protection, breaking the pitch down into chunks, and dealing with ‘trad’ type features of wet jamming cracks loose rock and the odd bird.

I got a nice E6 done, initially thinking it was new but later finding out it had been done by Jacob Cook recently. Good to see some other folk visiting the islands and putting routes up.

Repeating a nice E6 at the Flannan area. Photo: Hot Aches Productions.

The next day we went to Aird Feinis with Cubby’s excellent Top Tackle Tips (E6) in mind. But big waves battering the base of it prevented us. So we had a top rope play on two new routes, one hard E7 and the other hard E8. Nat also had a play on the E7, and obviously had no trouble doing the moves. 

On day 3 we visited the Boardwalk where Nat onsighted an E2, again without any bother at all. I climbed one E4, then backed off another soggy one. At the end of the day, Nat went for an E4 with a bouldery crux right off the ground. After some deliberation about where to start, she pulled off the ground, only for the very first hold to break off a nanosecond later. Nat plonked down on her bum on the wave platform, and we laughed that she survived her first trad groundfall. I tied in and tried another hold that stayed on the wall.

An obvious good objective for the trip was the super classic Prozac Link (4 pitch E4) in Screaming Geo. It’s widely regarded as among the finest E4s in Britain, and it’s a mega trip across the great arch; guaranteed to provide an adventure. We started up it in glorious hot sun, but cracks still damp from the sea spray, so I led. The next two pitches had a couple of wet holds or unobvious gear so I led those too, and both of us were enjoying the increasing exposure.

Hanging on the belay before the final and crux pitch, I thought it would be interesting to see what Nat decided about this pitch. Would she lead? On such a classic route, on a great day, it seemed like a good moment to take a step up. Would she feel ready? When she arrived at the belay, it was obvious she was determined to go for it. Once she set off, her movements across the wall made it even more obvious. She was going up this pitch no matter what. It was great to watch.

Natalie setting off on pitch 4 of The Prozac Link, E4, Screaming Geo.

View from the Hot Aches Productions camera of Natalie leading the Prozac Link, E4. 

The next day we returned to Ard Feinis with the E7 wall in our sights. It was damp and already raining. But I was totally psyched to do it if at all possible. Natalie linked it on the top rope with ease but still opted to pass me the lead until she had more experience placing the few crucial small cams that only just protect it.

The rain got heavier and heavier, so there wasn’t time to lose. I kept my chalkbag dry by tucking under my top until I was under the crux roof before flinging it off, drying my hands and feet and launching up the wall. Apart from a few seconds off faff drying my hands after fiddling with rainsoaked cams, I enjoyed every second of the wall, especially grabbing the monster bucket wet jug at the top and throwing on my pre-stashed Gore-Tex jacket. A first E7 since coming back from surgery and a good milestone in regaining my confidence. Nat seconded into a faceful of drips from the top of the wall, and we scurried back to the car to thaw out, happy.

I don’t know whether it’s because I’ve had a nice rest this week with lots of sleep after all those 16 hour building days at home, because I’ve been back to climbing, or because I’ve been climbing in inspiring surroundings all week, but I feel a burst of energy right now. I’ll have to use it for something good.

Looking across to the Flannan isles from Screaming Geo, Lewis. Photo: Hot Aches Productions

Great Climb & Triple 5 DVD’s have arrived

The DVDs of our live BBC Great Climb and also the Triple 5 (5 Climbs, 5 Islands) programmes are ready and Cameron McNeish is dropping them in to me later this morning. I’ve put them up in the shop just now.

The Great Climb DVD comes as a 3xDVD set with the full 6 hour programme of the first ascent of The Usual Suspects E9 7a, including an option to listen with or without the television commentary, extra footage from the climb such as the roof section on Pitch 4 of our route and extras about the background and making of the programme. It’s in the shop here.

The Triple 5 DVD comes as a 2xDVD set of a longer cut of the film with extra climbing, interview and background footage. The ‘5 Climbs, 5 Islands’ programmes that went out on the BBC was 2 hour cut. The DVD is a 3.5 hour cut so could go into more depth about the climbs we did during the challenge and our approaches to climbing in general. It’s in the shop here.

I noticed at Kendal that a lot of folk wanted their DVD signed. If you would like that when ordering from the shop, just ask! Write in the ‘Special instructions to merchant’ field of the checkout page.

Hope you enjoy them.

Lectures in Harris, Lewis and Kendal

I’ve just arranged two lectures in the Western Isles pretty soon - I’m speaking on Harris at the Harris Hotel, Tarbert at 8pm on October 4th. On Oct 5th I’m at the Cala Inn in Stornoway. I’ll talk about how climbing transformed my life, thoughts on climbing Sron Uladail on live telly with an overdose of painkillers and why climbing is load safer than it looks…

Well, most of the time anyway.

I’m also speaking at this year’s Kendal Mountain Festival in November. On the Friday night  I’m speaking alongside Andy Turner at the Premiere of The Pinnacle (The Smith/Marshall ‘week’ on the Ben). On the Saturday it’s ‘Great Climb’ night and I’m co-hosting an evening of talking and film about the making of the BBC live broadcast alongside Richard Else, Brian Hall and Cameron McNeish. Should be fun!

See y’all there.

Triple 5 challenge

Enjoying a wall of immaculate Gabbro on St Kilda

In preparation for The Great Climb on August 28th - our live Climb on Sron Uladail, Richard Else from Triple Echo set Tim Emmett and myself a separate climbing challenge to attempt.

5 new routes on 5 Hebridean islands in 5 days - the Triple 5. The parameters were totally fixed. No second chances, no extensions, no workarounds. I was fairly skeptical to say the least that we could pull it off. Sometimes I’ve barely managed to get five new (hard) routes in five years in the hebrides due to it’s fickle weather. The idea of turning up by boat each morning on a different island, rigging ropes for four cameras and coming away with new hard rock climbs back to back seemed a tad far fetched. 

And so it turned out. We had rain, problems with boats, gales, soakings by waves, breaking holds, falls and violent sea sickness. In amongst all that we had some surprising successes. Obviously to see the outcome you’ll have to tune in to the BBC on your preferred platform on August 28th. How much you’ll see of our adventure will depend on the action happening on our Sron Uladail attempt. If it’s all guns blazing on the Sron then our Triple 5 adventure might be shown a little later. We’ll have to see…

Here are a some pictures to give you a taster of a week that all of us will remember for a long time:

Tim eyes up the Shiants as we approach.

Lonely cottage on the Shiants.

The 30 foot roof on Creag Mo which I fell off three times.

Interested locals watch us on Galta Mor, The Shiants.

Tim enjoying the wildlife packed sea lochs on Lewis.

A moment of concentration as precious cargo is carried aboard.

The Cuma waits patiently for us in Village Bay, St Kilda.

Lewis local. Didn’t say much..

Tea and frantic planning for tomorrow on the boat.

Nice Brian, nice.

Gary takes us across Loch Seaforth after a long night aboard. On the journey to St Kilda I was the most violently sick I've been in my life. My fulmar impression was only matched by Cubby. The nausea failed to wear off as we prepared for our new route on the island. I nearly fainted on the 'high street' of Village Bay. What a state.

Joe enjoying the tour of St Kilda.

St Kilda’s stacks blew us away.

A magic sight of St Kilda’s spiky surreal skyline.

Me, and a team of people who are quite amazing at what they do. It was a pleasure...

Some quick facts about the Sron Ulladale live climb

Today I’ve been getting some questions about the BBC live broadcast on Aug 28th. Here are some answers as far as I know them right now:

What happens if it rains, just like last time?

Two possibilities - First the Sron is just about the biggest natural umbrella in the UK. The part we want to climb stays completely dry in the foulest of atlantic weather fronts. Our only Achilles heel might be if an isolated hold or section of the route is seeping from a crack, or the top of the overhangs are too hard to climb in the wet. I’ll know more about this after the golden eagles have finished raising their chicks and I can get on the cliff to look closely. I think in all but a northwesterly gale blowing heavy rain and body numbing cold straight into the overhangs, we should be sheltered and able to climb at least most of it. I have seen some methods of getting to the top by some creative route finding if we can’t avoid wet rock at the top 50m, but it totally depends on the exact nature of the terrain we end up climbing.

But in case of a truly grim storm that really interferes with our climbing, we’ll have a ton of footage to show you from the triple five challenge which we are filming next month. The objectives are all pretty hard - E7 or harder. Naturally we have some options here for frustrating weather as well. Either way, there should be plenty of fine exciting climbing action to bring you on Aug 28th.

I can’t get BBC2 Scotland, can I still watch it?

Yes, it will be streamed live on the BBC website, and shown on the BBC HD channel too. Not doubt there will be plenty of other methods to tune in besides - more on this as I get the information from the BBC.

What will you do if you can’t climb your route?

I’ll fall off and that’ll be that! I’m expecting we’ll have a ‘living end’ standard piece of climbing to do. I’ll be giving it plenty and will be arriving well prepared, psyched and ready for a fine battle. I’m sure Tim will be too. But such is the nature of doing new things in sport; barriers can’t be broken every time. So we might fall off. We’ll all find out on the day. No pressure then…

What islands are you climbing on during the triple five week?

I’ll tell you when I see the forecast the day before we actually climb them, and if Donald can get close enough to the cliffs to land us in his boat. In other words, we have a plan, but that plan is guaranteed to change, and change again as the Hebridean weather has the last word. You’ll have to take my word for it that we’ll be climbing some stunning pieces of rock in some stunning places.

The Great Climb 2010

The mighty Sron Ulladale, Isle of Harris

It’s great to be able to talk about this now…Nearly three years ago, the BBC attempted to run the ambitious live ‘Great Climb’ live broadcast on Cairngorm, with myself and a team of climbers from all over the world. We planned, rigged and trained for the big day. And then it rained. The washout was a huge disappointment, partially avenged by my ascent of my project on Hell’s Lum cliff a few days later which became the film ‘To Hell and Back’. 

Ever since, Triple Echo Productions who were behind the Great Climb project have been planning to make another attempt at a big live climbing event for the BBC. This year, the necessary components have aligned and we have a plan:

On 28th August, myself and Tim Emmett are planning to attempt a hard new route on Sron Ulladale, the biggest overhanging piece of rock in the UK (700 feet high, overhanging it’s base by 150 feet or so). As you might imagine, the prospect of this brings feelings of massive excitement, together with a fair dose of intimidation, pressure and anticipation. The correct ingredients for a fine adventure.

Harris landscape

I’d love to tell you exactly which part of the mighty Sron we will try to climb, but last week on our recce, close inspection of the cliff was out of the question due to the golden eagles, nesting on the main part of the face once again. If the eagles hatch chicks (best of luck to them!) we won’t be able to look closely at the lines until August. So until then, it’s training and waiting. Naturally, our plan is to climb the hardest possible route that imagination and finger strength allows.

Colin Wells standing at the foot of Sron Ulladale. The rock in shot above him is roughly the first fifth of the cliff height (!).

However, we have something else up our sleeves for the meantime. We’ll be doing another challenge to feature in the 6 hour live broadcast. We’ll try a triple five challenge of five new climbs on five hebridean islands in five days. Last week Donald took us around many a far flung corner of the Western Isles, showing us many a gobsmacking unclimbed cliff, geo or stack. After serial protracted deliberations in Hotel Hebrides we shortlisted the many amazing cliffs into five objectives, which we will travel between by boat, sleeping below deck, in camps or under boulders.

I’ll have a lot more to say about this as more plans emerge in the coming weeks. Right now I have to go back to training for it. More on the BBC site here.

A few days on Lewis

The consequences of a still morning at the Slig on Skye - midge death
Claire and the Aird Feinis boulder
Claire on a new 4c SS
Claire getting psyched
A little training to finish off
An awesome roof problem at Port Nis - Font 6b+
A big prow thing at Port Nis - scary Font 5

Here are some photos from Lewis. I didn't climb much but had a quick play at the Aird Feinis boulder (I'll post up a topo later on) and a couple of quick problems at Nis. Hmm after 6 visits to Lewis and Harris I've done a lot of good climbing there and starting to feel I've done a lot of what I'd like to do on the sea cliffs. Gneiss is sooo good I only wish there were more walls like Dalbeg, Screaming Geo, and Sheigra. Next time I visit the island I suspect it will be for the mountain crags again. I met up with Niall for a days climbing but with the crags wet we opted for exploring geos and some highly dynamic scrambling to escape the Fulmar projectile vomit.

Thanks Frin for putting us up!

Why is Lewis so popular?

Those who haven't yet experienced the Gneiss of the Outer Hebrides sea cliffs, might be forgiven for wondering why Scottish climbers drive past all of the highland cliffs and jump on a ferry to the furthest corner of the UK? Well, yeah the rock is beautiful stuff, but thats not all. Blogs like Silversprite illuminate some of the other attractions on show. I've never seen beaches elsewhere on earth that even come close. Hey and I'm going there in 2 weeks!!!

The landscape of Lewis and Harris would leave a mark on anyone I think. I can't describe it really. All I can say is - everything just seems richer, colours, the rock texture; everything.